Portable personal computers (PCs) were first introduced in the early 1980s and have since enjoyed great commercial success and consumer acceptance. As the portable PC market has grown, manufacturers have produced portable PCs with continually improved capabilities and displays and that are increasingly more powerful and faster than their predecessors. This trend has resulted in many users replacing the more traditional desktop PC with portable PCs as their primary or sole computing device.
Portable PCs, however, have certain disadvantages as compared to desktop PCs due to the size constraints necessary to make portable PCs portable. In particular, the keyboard attached to a portable PC is much smaller than those used in connection with desktop PCs, with both fewer keys resulting in less functionality, and smaller keys which hamper typing. Moreover, the attached portable PC keyboard is just that, attached, thereby causing the user to position the PC such that the keys are reachable and the display viewable. Such positioning requires the portable PC to be in a poor ergonomic orientation with respect to the user, resulting in user discomfort if used for long periods of time.
In addition, the height of the standard portable PC display requires the user to look down at a slight angle. Ergonomic desirability would have the user either looking horizontally or only slightly downward between approximately 0.degree. and -15.degree. (where 0.degree. is horizontal). There is also a need to interface portable PCs with established PC networks to connect with common servers, electronic mail, modem pools and the like common in today's office environments.
To overcome some of these disadvantages associated with portable PCs, docking stations have been developed that provide portable PCs with a plurality of connectors via a port replicator to enable portable PCs to be interfaced with PC networks and desktop computer peripheral equipment, such as larger keyboards, detached mice, monitors, printers and the like. The port replicator replicates the connectors, or ports, typically found on desktop PCs that serve to connect the PC to a network or peripheral equipment. Thus, once docked with a docking station, such peripheral equipment or network connections can be interfaced with the portable PC. In this manner, the portable PC user can connect a full size keyboard to the portable PC to take advantage of the larger keys and enhanced functionality of such keyboards.
More recently, docking stations have been designed to include a receptacle, or bay, for receiving a removable media module of a portable computer to enable access to the module by a desktop computer or PC network via the docking station. Examples of common media modules include floppy disk drives ("FDDs") and CD ROM drives. Other examples include ZIP drives, removable media hard disk drives, and magneto-optical drives.
It will be recognized that different families of portable computers produced by a manufacturer will generally have different form factors. As a result, the form factors of the various modules thereof, including media modules, will also have different form factors. For this reason, each family of portable computers typically has associated therewith a docking station designed specifically for that family. Accordingly, the life of the docking station is limited by the life of the corresponding family of computers. In other words, each time a new family of portable computers is rolled out, a new docking station must also be designed and manufactured. Clearly, this process is expensive and time consuming.
Therefore, what is needed is an apparatus for extending the life of a portable computer docking station beyond the life of the family of portable computers with which it is initially associated.